Presently the figure stirred, rose and came to the bedside. I recognized Clark, even in the dimness of the gray dawn.
"You have been watching me, my Colonel?" I questioned, trying to smile, and to put out the hand that was too feeble to answer to my will. Clark came closer, saw my purpose, gave my hand a warm pressure, and lifted me a little higher on my pillows.
"You have been near enough the happy hunting ground to know the way, my lad. But, thank God, you are better, and will live long enough, I trust, to forget the route before you take another journey in that direction."
"In Kaskaskia, in one of the loft rooms of the Commandant's house."
"Yes, and asleep, I hope; she and Angélique tend you by day, Légère, Givens and I by night; but you must not talk yet a while; that's Dr. Lafonte's orders. Drink this and go to sleep."
I obeyed like a child, settling myself deeper in the feathers, with a sigh of content.
Upon my third awaking, I recognized Ellen's voice, and felt her soft hand upon my brow.
"Ellen!" I whispered, and opened my eyes to look at the face bending above mine with the rapture a saint might feel upon seeing some beatific vision, long prayed for.
"Do not talk, Cousin Donald," she said, beaming a smile of cheerful affection upon me; "Dr. Lafonte says you must be very quiet for a few days more."
I managed, despite my weakness, to get hold of her hand, and clung to it feebly. "I will be perfectly quiet," I answered in tones so weak that I wondered if it could be really I who was speaking, "if you will sit beside me and hold my hand."
She smiled, flushed a little, and as she held a glass of cordial to my lips said coaxingly, "If you'll drink this and go to sleep, I will." Then she sat down beside me, and held my nerveless fingers in her warm, soft clasp, till I was dreaming an odd jumble of pleasant visions through all of which flitted Ellen's face and form.
This sort of half dream life went on I know not how long. I only remember an incident here and there--floating faces, cups held to my lips, and then the pleasant drifting off into long periods of dreamless rest. At last I was strong enough to sit part of each day in a high-backed chair, and after that I saw little of Ellen. She came twice each day for a brief visit, but Angélique brought my broth and wine, helped me from bed to chair, smoothed my pillows, and sometimes sang me to sleep with wild, sweet Acadian ballads. Clark came in and out with cheery presence, and encouraging words--but now that summer had come again he had more affairs to administer, and so less time to give me. Givens would linger, though, when he came on his daily visit, to tell me the gossip of the village, of which the half wild, half drowsy life suited him well. Légère and others visited me almost daily, and my monotonous life was not a lonely one, though forced inaction grew more and more irksome as my strength returned.